Load balancing for single-address tenants

摘要

When a load balancer detects that a virtual address is associated with a single destination address, the load balancer sets a flag to distinguish the virtual address from virtual addresses that are associated with a plurality of destination addresses. The load balancer instructs the router to bypass the load balancer for network packets that are addressed to the virtual address, and refrains from storing subsequent flow state for the virtual address. When the virtual address is to be scaled up with an additional destination address, the load balancer sets a flag to distinguish the virtual address from virtual addresses that are associated with a single destination addresses. The load balancer instructs the router to route network packets that are addressed to the virtual address through the load balancer, instead of bypassing the load balancer, and starts storing flow state for the virtual address.

主权项

1. At a computer system that includes one or more processors and system memory, the computer system being configured as a load balancer that controls the routing of network packets between virtual addresses and destination addresses, a method for configuring load balancing for a virtual address, the method comprising:
an act of the load balancer detecting that a virtual address that is being managed by the load balancer is associated with only a single destination address; in response to detecting, an act of the load balancer setting a flag for the virtual address to distinguish the virtual address from other virtual addresses that are associated with a plurality of destination addresses; in response to detecting, an act of the load balancer sending a configuration message to a router, the configuration message interpretable by the router as an instruction to send network packets that are addressed to the virtual address to the destination address in a manner that bypasses the load balancer; subsequent to sending the configuration message to the router, an act of the load balancer refraining from storing subsequent flow state for the virtual address; an act of the load balancer detecting that said virtual address that is being managed by the load balancer is to be scaled up from being associated with only a first destination address to being associated with at least an additional second destination address; in response to detecting, an act of the load balancer setting a new flag for the virtual address to distinguish the virtual address from other virtual addresses that are associated with a single destination address; in response to detecting, an act of the load balancer sending a new configuration message to a router, the new configuration message interpretable by the router as an instruction to send network packets that are addressed to the virtual address to the load balancer, and cease a previous practice to bypass the load balancer for network packets that are addressed to the virtual address; and subsequent to sending the new configuration message to the router, an act of the load balancer storing flow state for said virtual address.